This holiday season brings with it the anniversary of another memorial, though a somewhat insignificant event, the disappearance of the mailbox on the corner of Front and Ross. It\u2019s gone, but the cement pillar it hung from remains, crumbling and leaning 15 degrees to the west. It looked so forlorn that I hung a Christmas decoration on it and am repeating the article written seven years ago, as a testament to its demise. <\/p>\n
A day of infamy in 2009:<\/b><\/p>\n
She\u2019s gone! You could see it coming. She knew too much, too many secrets. Two burly guys came by in the afternoon, wrestled her to the ground, threw her in the back of a van and took off. Now we just have a stone monument, slightly askew, marking the spot where she proudly stood. The little blue mailbox on the corner of Ross and Front was taken from us. Ripped out of the neighborhood. Ripped out of our lives. No longer efficient, a victim of changing times. <\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how long it was there. They don\u2019t keep records on that sort of thing. I asked postmaster Dave Clark. He didn\u2019t know. He just said that it wasn\u2019t used very much; some days there was nothing in it, some days just a few letters, never more than a handful. One neighbor said it was there when he was a kid. Another thought some sort of mailbox had been at that location for 100 years or more. I know for sure it was around to collect letters from loved ones sent to soldiers in Europe, Africa and the South Pacific, fighting in the war, the big one, WWII. \u201cDear Billy, I hope this finds you well. We\u2019re praying for you. The scrap drive was a big success. We collected 100 pounds of copper. Dad ran out of gasoline coupons so we didn\u2019t get out to the farm to see grandma this week.\u201d If only it could talk. What stories it would tell! But, it is no more. Modern technology made it obsolete and lack of activity forced it into retirement.<\/p>\n
A few neighbors used it faithfully, several times a week. Now I watch them walk down the street to mail a letter in a box that isn\u2019t there. They stare dumbfounded into the empty space for a minute or two, wondering, \u201cWhat the heck?\u201d It sat outside my kitchen window, in a direct line of sight from my perch at the counter, a perfect set up for a nosy old coot. \u201cThere\u2019s Mrs. So-and-so,\u201d I would yell to my wife. \u201cMust be they are back from Florida.\u201d Or, I\u2019d report, \u201cMr. Been-around-a-long-time just mailed a letter. He was walking pretty well, no limp. Looks like he\u2019s fully recovered from his hip replacement surgery.\u201d It was more than a blue chunk of metal. It was the neighborhood \u201cwatering hole,\u201d a place where we caught up with each other, a place where we exchanged snippets about the grandchildren, the latest round of aches and pains, and tips on where to get the cheapest gas in town. It was more than a mailbox. And, we miss it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s where we put our letters to friends and relatives; it\u2019s where we paid our bills and filed our income taxes, back when everyone did their own, back before IRA\u2019s, 401K\u2019s and an endless list of rules made it impossible for anyone but a CPA, back when the instruction book was wafer thin, not the 82-page monster we have today. Electronic filing, electronic bill payments and e-mail put our mailbox out of business. It\u2019s a done deal! It\u2019s gone and there is nothing I can do about it. Except complain! And that isn\u2019t getting me anywhere. Everyone I complain to says the same thing, \u201cGET OVER IT!\u201d <\/p>\n